It Is Spring...Again!!!

Spring has finally sprung out here in the "bush".  Fortunately for Beth and I, it is our third spring this year.  You see, before we left North Carolina for Alaska, spring had arrived.  We had the grass turning green, the trees bursting forth with leaves and all sorts of things popping up out of the ground. 



Cherry tree blossoms in North Carolina

Oh yeah, and the bugs.  And in North Carolina those bugs get real excited about spring! 

When we were in Anchorage during the middle of this month, we got to see spring arrive again.  On the day that we drove up to Denali the trees were just beginning to show some signs of life.

Since our little day trip up Parks Highway toward Fairbanks went longer than we had planned (ask me about our "day" trip to Canada from Menahga, MN sometime), we arrived back in Anchorage at about 8 pm to trees that had popped out all their leaves!




Birch with leaves outside Wasilla

Now, finally, the same thing is happening out here in Aniak.  The pine trees stay mostly green all the time but the birch trees are in full array with all their beautiful green leaves just coming out.  I am sure it will look even more beautiful later in the summer when everything gets real green but for now we are simply enjoying our third spring of this year.  Thank you very much.



Sunset, taken at midnight.

Along with spring comes the realization of one of the Alaska nicknames for the state being "Land of the Midnight Sun".  We really do not have much darkness here right now.  Sunrise is around 5 am and sunset is around midnight.  But the sun roughly rises in the extreme northeast, makes a sweeping arc to the south and then sets in the extreme northwest.  It might get a little dark between two and three in the morning but I am not up too often in order to verify that myth.  In Anchorage they actually have a Midnight Sun Softball League where games do not start until 10:30 at night.  No ball park lighting necessary.



Another sign of spring here in Aniak is our grocery delivery system.  In the winter, many customers phone the store with their grocery order.  We box it all up and then drive it over to the airport where bush pilots then fly these groceries out to the these "more remote" villages.  NOW, however, since the river is open, people simply hop in their boats and come up or down river to Aniak to shop at our store.  Some customers who make frequent trips to the bustling metropolis of Aniak leave a four-wheeler near the river for when they come to town.  But for others, they must walk to the store (the store is only the equivalent of one city block from the river).  So, when they are finished shopping we drive them back to their boat on the river.  Incredible.  But that is life out here...in THIS spring.

Beth ready for spring!

Mark

Breaking Up...In NOT So Hard To Do

"It was so slow...it was like watching grass grow".  "It was so boring...it was like watching paint dry".  I am sure you all have heard these sayings but believe it or not when I tell you that watching and waiting for the ice to break up on the Kuskokwim river has been more fascinating and exciting than I thought possible.  Well, maybe not REAL exciting but definitely fascinating.

The average date for break up is May 7th, so prior to that date people start driving trucks, 4-wheelers, snow machines and bicycles to the banks of the river to observe its progress.

Just watching the river

 It starts with a little bit of open water between all the ice...


little bit of open water

progresses to big chunks moving down river...




big chunks and "pans" the size of houses!

to just one big o' ice jam...

Ice chunks on the road

which is what ever fears the most.  You see when the river jams with ice and the water stops flowing, then it flows over the banks and floods the town. 

Fortunately that did not happen this year and the ice is now all gone off the river and there is only a few feet wide of ice chunks remaining on the river banks.  So, I guess we could say that we had a good break up.  Not everyone can say that...right?

Russian Mtns. with new snow in front of a mostly clear Kuskokwim River

On another note I must confess my utter fascination with children driving four-wheelers. 
It is quite common and sometimes you might see a 10-year old driving and two younger ones riding along.  Just cracks me up.  I keep trying to capture them on camera but the little buggers are just too fast sometimes.










Finally, Beth and I are taking a mini/urgent vacation/medical trip to Anchorage tomorrow through Sunday for me to have semi-emergency surgery for a hernia.  Thank you for praying for us.

Mark

Time in the Village

The other day one of our staff asked about the pace of her work day, "Can this day go any slower?".  Well, that was an easy one for me so I stepped in with some smart alecky comments about the precise rotation of the earth...blah, blah, blah.  But to be perfectly honest, time up here in Alaska in a remote village does seem to be a little off kilter.  Let me explain.

First, there is native time.  If it is said that church starts at 10:30 in the morning...that just means that coffee is started at that time and the actual service may get started somewhere close to 11:00.  If one of our employees is slated to begin work at noon, perhaps they just thought of that as a suggestion and 12:30 might be a better time.  Less predictable would be the arrival and departures at the local airport.  "The plane should leave in about 15 minutes or so"  is a common comment.  I mean, all the passengers are there, so we may as well leave sooner rather than later...right?  The only predictable time schedule is flight arrival since we all know that it is only a 22 minute flight from Kalskag to Aniak and the plane just left two minutes ago so I suppose the plane should be here in about twenty minutes.  You got all that?



Airstrip on the other side of the fence

Speaking of flying...that brings me (Mark) to the next time element.  Supplies for the store arrival time.  Sometimes we order things (GM, grocery, etc) and they arrive in a week,,,sometimes three weeks!  or longer!  And we do not know that the freight is arriving until we get a phone call from the airport telling us that they are "on the way with five pallets:  two freeze, one chill and two dry".  Of course we did have some inkling that freight might be arriving since we are ALL right next to the airport and you can definitely tell the difference between a small passenger puddle jumper plane and a quite large cargo plane that causes the whole village to rumble to the point that you wondered if we were having an earthquake!  On a brief side note...many customers phone in what is referred to as a "bush order" for groceries that we box up and take to the airport for transport to their village.  Neat, huh?  A little expensive too but that is how it works out here.

10:30 pm view over the Kuskokwim River

Finally, as you all are aware, daylight, or lack of it, is often an issue up here at 61 degrees north latitude.  I have lived as far south as

Whittier, ALASKA

 Whittier, CA (34 degrees north) and as far north as Menahga, MN (46 degrees north) and until now have not fully appreciated "time".  Here in Aniak I am learning about daylight.  For starters, we ALL understand Actual Time: Today, May 4th 2012, our sun rise was at 6:16 AM and sunset is scheduled for 10:54 PM.  16 hours and 38 minutes of "actual' daylight.  Then there is Civil Twilight.  You know, when the sun is no more than 6 degrees below the horizon at either sunrise or sunset.  For that, we have "civil" daylight from 5:15 AM to 11:56 PM.  That is right, 18 hours and 41 minutes of light in the sky where one should be able to carry on normal outside activities.  Finally, there is Nautical Twilight.  This is when the sun is 6 to 12 degrees below the horizon.  Today, we will have "nautical" daylight for 23 hours and 20 minutes...from 3:08 AM to 2:28 AM.  I happened to wake up at 4:30 this morning...and you guessed it, I was curious and sure enough it was a little light outside.  Needless to say, we DO have room darkening shades on the windows.

Thank you for hanging in there with me today.  I actually have more to write but this has been lengthy already so I will tune in again another day...soon.  Seeing how today is a Star Wars Day, I have some information about Chewey that you might find interesting.



Mark

Life in the "Bush"

I (Mark) need to share a little of what is on my mind/heart:

Life here in the village of Aniak, Alaska (also referred to as being "out in the bush") is different from most other places that we have lived. 


On the Kuskokwim River

If you have a limited imagination, then you would be hard pressed to find much to do during your spare time.  Do not get me wrong, this is such a beautiful place full of opportunities for activities such as boating, fishing, four-wheeling, hiking, hunting and snow machining.


Hiking along with "big white dog"

Unfortunately, many people are not so creative.  Out here in the bush, drinking and drug abuse are wide spread.  Abuse and violence are common against both humans and critters.  Often times there seems to be very little that is valued. 


Common site

Vehicles, dwellings and even personal hygiene/care/appearance are neglected.  Much to our dismay, these things have hit close to home (work) this week with abuse and even a suicide.  It breaks our hearts.  It saddens us to see so little value placed on the richness that God provides.


Small mountains in Alaska

 We are thankful that God has brought us to so rich a place and we pray that we would be found faithful in being good stewards of His goodness.





And away we go!

Anchorage was a beautiful and nice small city with all the amenities we have become so dependent on.   We enjoyed our visit here but it was time to repack our life into six large suitcases and finish the next leg of our journey.  We arrived at the Anchorage airport nice and early only to find that our flight was delayed almost four hours due to maintenance.  We spent our time reading, watching people, walking around and waiting anxiously for our boarding call.  The plane we flew in comfortably sat thirty passengers, had the smallest lavatory I have ever seen, and offered beverage service.   Our flight would take us from Anchorage to Unalakleet then on to Aniak, about a two and a half hour trip.  We flew over amazing landscape. We saw the Alaska Mountains, Russian Mountains,  Kuskokwim Mountains, and the Yukon River.                                                                                                                                                               The further west, the more rugged the terrain, and I noticed that I did not see any villages, towns,
roads, buildings, or any sign of human life.



 Unlike flying over the midwest where you see blocks, patchwork fields, roads, lights, and constant evidence of  "us"; all I could see was vast wilderness which left me thinking if any of this beneath me has ever felt the weight of our footprints.  It truly is untamed. I felt so small. 

In Unalakleet we landed at an airport about the size of a Super America and got off the plane for twenty minutes or so.  I wandered into the parking lot and found myself standing on the edge of a frozen Norton Sound, a bay of the Bering Sea.

We reboarded the plane and shortly thereafter we landed in our temporary new village, Aniak. It was cold and snowy and it was now home.






Beth

Anchorage Day 3

We had a very busy and exciting day.  First we officially reported to work for the first time, went through orientation, signed lots of papers, met all the biggies at the office, and spent a long time at the DMV becoming licensed Alaska drivers. 

After our day of work related things we decided to take a little adventure and explore the beautiful mountains that are right near Anchorage.  The Chugach Mountains are not as large as other mountain ranges in Alaska but are beautiful in their own right.  We visited the Turnagain arm of the Cook Inlet, drove down to the Kenai Peninsula, saw the Portage glacier, drove through a 2.5 mile tunnel through a mountain (underneath a big glacier) and came out on the other side to see a small bit of the Prince William Sound. 

Tonight we will spend the rest of our time here preparing for our trek to Aniak tomorrow.  Laundry, repacking, charging all of our electronics, and still trying to adjust to the time change. 

It was a good day.  I saw beautiful things.  I felt the cold wind coming off the mountain glaciers. Yes, it was a good day.


You can see all of our mountain pictures :


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3470098082141.154258.1561776055&type=1&l=1439aa240b




Beth 



View of southeast Alaska while over the gulf of Alaska

Even had Disney music playing!

After a very full day of travel and barely making all our connecting flights we arrived safely in Anchorage, Alaska yesterday. Our Alaska Airlines plane was actually Disney themed...how exciting!

 Beth and I have an incredible view of the mountains from our hotel.  Temperatures are running in the 30's and 40's and there is still plenty of snow on the ground. 

Moose eating bark off the tree

Today we explored the greater Anchorage area and even drove by a moose right off the road when we were just north of the airport while visiting the Earthquake Park.  The moose sighting simply made our day.  Later, we visited the Alaska Zoo, and seeing the moose in the zoo just did not seem all that exciting.  We did, however, learn some facts about bears that may come in handy in the near future.

Self explanatory

Speaking of bears, and this being the beginning of "spring bear" season, I purchased a new rifle, bear spray and a bear bell.

Tomorrow we have orientation at the home office and then Tuesday we board another plane to head out to Aniak.  Please stay tuned!